An "International" Meal

   These are what we had for family dinner two nights ago:

Main dishes:          Chili con carne

                                    Brown rice

Drink:                      Green tea with mint
Dessert:                   Tikoy

                                   Christmas stollen

     Midway through the meal, I laughingly observed that it was made up of an assortment of dishes that were foreign in origin.  It was a combination of Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, German, and of course, Filipino food. If I hadn't taken note of it, the meal's odd character would have passed unnoticed. It is not our practice to have themed meals in our household. We just serve what we enjoy eating and on this particular day, they just happened to be what it was.

Singaporean dish we had in a restaurant in our neighborhood

     Perhaps the international flavor comes from our family's openness to try all sorts of dishes. Even in their childhood, my kids were not afraid to try new and "strange" dishes. It became a sort of a goal to be able to add more to the list of foreign dishes we have tried. Chinese food was common and soon enough, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese dishes would appear on this list. Italian food was also easy to come by where we lived. Visiting my sister in NY meant widening our culinary experience all the more. That meant not only sampling diverse American food but also the food of the immigrant neighborhoods near where she lived (When I think of NY, I crave for the salt-encrusted pretzels and Greek souvlaki one can buy on the streets!). Travels which has taken us to parts of Europe (In Madrid,  I could not rest until after I had partaken of callos) and Asia have further enriched our palates (A current family favorite is fish amok from Cambodia).

     But of course, nothing beats having Filipino food on our table. On any given day, we relish what is served to us whether is it plain, blanched talbos ng kamote with suka dressing in tandem with pork tapa prepared San Pablo-style or a painstakingly prepared pancit molo and rellenong bangus. Yes, you might have noticed by this time that eating in our home is a much appreciated experience. If there's very little chance of going around the world, isn't eating the food of different countries the next best thing to being there? So hop in and join our family on our next food trip. Sarap!